Don't mess with Texas Baptists

I was cleaning out some boxes recently and ran across the January 1986 sesquicentennial edition of Texas Monthly magazine. In it was a fascinating article called “Bane of the Baptists” by Gary Cleve Wilson, which I’ve excerpted below. (This, of course, is why my cleaning process invariably stalls out – I stop to read things.)

The article that distracted me was about William Cowper Brann, who was described as “the most controversial and widely read Texan of his day.” After serving as chief editorial writer on the Houston Post, he moved to Austin where he founded the Iconoclast, a journal that by the end of 1894, its first year of publication, had a circulation of 100,000. In effect, Brann was something like a pre-blogging version of a blogger.

Brann took on Texas Baptists in his writings, and Texas Baptists didn’t like it. Not one bit. Brann paid a high price. The lesson: Don’t mess with Texas Baptists.

Nowadays, I see so much of Texas Baptists’ complicity in clergy sex abuse and cover-ups, and so much of Texas Baptists’ bullying and intimidation tactics against those who speak out about abuse that, sometimes, I think some Texas Baptists couldn’t possibly get any badder if they tried. But then I ponder the long history of connections between Texas Baptists and the Texas Klan. And then I run across an article like this one about Brann. And then I remember just how deeply entrenched violence actually is in the institutionalized heart of Texas Baptists.

From “Bane of the Baptists:”

“What readers relished most was the Iconoclast’s running war with Waco, Baylor, and the Baptists. To Brann, that countrified Trinity exemplified Victorian hypocrisy in its most splendid combination. When local preachers thundered against prizefighting, Brann wrote, ‘If Corbett and Fitzsimmons were to fight in Dallas today – without admission fee – Waco, the religious hub of the world, would be depopulated. Half the preachers of Texas would go early to secure front seats.’”

A prominent religious leader of the day “christened Brann ‘Apostle of the Devil.’ The name stuck, and Baptists began to pray for deliverance from that journalistic scourge. . . .”

“Then Antonia Teixeira came along…. . A Brazilian missionary student at Baylor, Antonia boarded with Baylor’s president, the Reverend Dr. Rufus C. Burleson. While there, she became pregnant. In the summer of 1895 H. Steen Morris, a relative of Burleson’s, was arrested and charged with her rape. Brann put two and two together, and it came up ‘Baptists and a despoiled innocent.” He could ask for no better cause.

“’Baylor,’ Brann wrote, would ‘stink forever in the nostrils of Christendom – it is damned to everlasting fame.’ It was as if the university itself had committed the rape. Baptists and Baylor tried to defend their honor while Brann exploited the issue for two years. . . .

“It was only a matter of time before Baylor sympathizers would act. When Brann proposed the erection of a monument commemorating Baylor’s taking ‘an ignorant little Catholic as raw material’ and getting ‘two Baptists as the finished product,’ Baylor loyalists figured they had had enough.

“On a Saturday afternoon in October 1897, Brann was abducted at gunpoint and driven to the Baylor campus for a lesson in humility. Beaten and threatened with worse, he was chased off campus. A week later he was caned and horsewhipped by a father-and-son team of Baylor partisans. Brann began to carry a gun and took shooting lessons. Six months later he got his chance.

“Brann was to take a well-earned vacation in the spring of 1898. He and his business manager were downtown buying railroad tickets when from behind them stepped Tom Davis, a local real estate investor and vocal detractor of Brann. Davis drew his pistol and shot at the lanky editor. Brann whirled, returning fire. The two emptied their six-shooters into each other as the late afternoon crowd stampeded. Moments later Davis was lying in a pool of blood, and Brann – shot in the groin, foot, and back – slid to the ground. He died early the next morning. Davis, hit six times, died soon after Brann.

“No one has given Texas Baptists much trouble since.”

Some things have changed since Brann’s time, but a lot of things haven’t. To this day, people don’t tend to give Texas Baptists much trouble, which helps to explain why stories like the mega-scandal at the Prestonwood Baptist mega-church can so easily get swept under the rug with no accountability for the cover-uppers.

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This 1986 article also brings to mind the extraordinary job that Texas Monthly magazine did with its early-on reporting of the much more recent case of Texas Baptist minister Matt Baker, who got his start at Baylor University, where a vicious sexual assault report was kept quiet, and who moved on through a dozen more Texas Baptist churches, leaving behind a trail of sexual abuse and assault allegations, all of which came to light only because he was ultimately prosecuted for murder. (And truth be told, Baker nearly got away with that as well.) It took a murder to finally bring to light Baker's history of sexual abuse and assault, and true to Texas Baptists' long pattern, there has still been no accountability for the Baylor university officials and church officials who covered up for Baker for so many years.

Statutes of limitation lifted in Illinois

The great State of Illinois has lifted the civil statute of limitations for lawsuits alleging child sex abuse!

This is a huge step forward and will help to protect countless thousands of kids into the future.

"Kids are safest when predators are jailed. But that can't always happen. So the next best option is to expose predators," said SNAP in its public statement. Civil lawsuits are a powerful tool toward that end.

Civil lawsuits are also a tool that can often bring to light the extensive cover-ups that we  see so frequently in religious institutions.

When allegations are made as part of a civil lawsuit filed at a public courthouse, the media can readily report on them. When the media reports on them, people learn about them. When people learn about them, other victims often come forward, other people may be prompted to tell what they know, and others who colluded in concealing the crimes can be exposed. Most importantly, with the exposure that civil lawsuits bring, people can at least have the opportunity to be warned about credibly-accused predators, and parents can then make their own decisions about who they're willing to trust their kids with.

A huge thank-you to the many individuals in the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, whose work helped to make this progress possible!

Evangelicals need to confront the reality of sexual abuse in their ranks

Boz Tchividjian

In yesterday’s Louisville Courier-Journal, award-winning religion writer Peter Smith wrote about the need for evangelical churches to confront sexual abuse and cover-ups within their own ranks. It’s a need that was recently given voice in a public statement written by former sex crimes prosecutor Boz Tchividjian and signed by more than 1,500 people worldwide.

The statement was prompted in part by a lawsuit brought by eleven plaintiffs alleging the cover-up of sexual abuse within churches affiliated with Sovereign Grace Ministries. Tchividjian said the lawsuit “underscored larger issues,” and his statement alluded, not only to the case, but also to religious leaders who have publicly defended Sovereign Grace and its president, including prominent Southern Baptist leaders.

The statement says that these developments show “the troubling reality that, far too often, the Church’s instincts are no different than those of many other institutions, responding to such allegations by moving to protect her structures rather than her children.”

Asked to comment about this public statement, I expressed my gratitude for the work of Boz Tchividjian, whom I have written about twice before. But I also expressed my view that something akin to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is what’s really needed, and my remarks were extensively quoted in Smith’s article.

“For many faith groups, including most Baptist groups, what is actually needed is something akin to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Those who have been victimized by clergy sex abuse are in desperate need of a safe place where they can tell their stories and be heard with respect and compassion. Those who have known about abusive clergy or who had reason to suspect, those who have been complicit in cover-ups, those who have engaged in intimidation tactics for the silencing of victims, and those who have followed the direction of senior pastors to keep things in the church family – all of these people – are in need of a safe place where they may now tell what they know, express their remorse, and do what is still possible for making kids safer in the future. Those parents who sit in the pews and wonder about how many of their leaders may have been complicit in covering up for clergy child molestations – those people also are in need. They need a credible outside resource to illuminate the truth for them – or at least as much of the truth as can possibly be ascertained. And finally, faith itself needs truth and reconciliation. When it comes to clergy sex abuse, faith needs no more of religious leaders’ do-nothing words of outrage; instead, what faith needs is human beings’ sacred commitment to shared truth.”

I’ll conclude by quoting the words of Desmond Tutu, anti-apartheid activist and former archbishop of Cape Town: “True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth . . . . It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”
__________________________

Article republished in Louisville Courier-Journal, 8/17/2013 

Pastor told investigators "he was aware"

A reader recently sent me an article with these comments:

“My childhood church had a young man who volunteered for years with AWANA and the youth group. I had also heard from adults that he was so wonderful to be a ‘father figure’ to several boys in the church whose parents were divorced. You can guess the result – he was eventually found out to be molesting these boys, and one case went to court.

Several of the boys he was close to seemed to develop some problems and disappeared from town.  I am pretty sure that there must have been many more victims. He was described in the paper as volunteering for ‘several years’ with youth and children, but I was in that church back in the mid-nineties and he didn't get prosecuted till 2005, so it was at least 10 years. He was basically a volunteer youth and children minister, extremely active in the ministries. He starred in the children's musical I was in . . . .  Knowing that there must have been more victims, I think it would be helpful to post this . . . . ”

I agree. So I’m posting this excerpt from a front-page article that was in the Daily News of Northwest Florida on November 5, 2005.

Church volunteer charged with molesting boy:

Investigators say Rocky Bayou Baptist Church has been aware of complaints for a few years

 “A Valparaiso man has been charged with molesting a boy for years whom he had met as a church youth volunteer, and investigators suspect more victims will surface.

Robert Thomas Jenkins-Hayes

“Robert “Robbie” Thomas Jenkins-Hayes, 42, is being held at Okaloosa County Jail on $350,000 bond for lewd and lascivious molestation, according to a Valparaiso Police Department arrest report. He’s been a volunteer with the AWANA program for youth at Rocky Bayou Baptist Church in Niceville for several years . . . .

“The Valparaiso Police launched an investigation after a 15-year-old boy came forward with allegations against Jenkins-Hayes, who was arrested Wednesday. But investigators say the church has been aware of complaints against Jenkins-Hayes for a few years.

“It has never been officially reported,” said Valparaiso Capt. Christy Goldsmith.

“Rocky Bayou’s senior pastor, Dale Julio, told investigators he was aware of instances when Jenkins-Hayes kissed boys on the lips and embraced them for too long, according to the report.”

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Rocky Bayou Baptist Church in Niceville, Florida, is shown as being affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Why should anyone be surprised by this keep-it-quiet pattern in the churches when high Southern Baptist officials have set the example with a stubborn and reckless entrenchment in denominational do-nothingness on clergy sex abuse?

Reckless disregard for kids

Quoted from a July 29, 2013, article by Kevin Koeninger in the Courthouse News Service in Clarksville, Tennessee:

“After a youth minister was charged with sex offenses, a Baptist church promised to protect its children, but all it did was offer an optional first aid course, and a second employee sexually abused another child, the family claims in court.

“Parents John and Jane Doe sued Spring Creek Baptist Church on behalf of their minor daughter Janie, in Montgomery County Court. . . .

"’In 2009, a youth minister at Spring Creek was criminally charged with having sexual contact with minors in Spring Creek's youth groups. The youth minister resigned voluntarily,’ the complaint states.

Pastor Paul Bunger
Spring Creek Baptist Church

"’Afterwards, at least one member of Spring Creek communicated to Senior Pastor Paul Bunger that Spring Creek should adopt policies for protecting children in its care.’

"’Spring Creek adopted no policies for protecting children other than offering a first aid course for Sunday School teachers on a voluntary basis.’"

“’That was inadequate,’ the Does say.
 

“The complaint continues: ‘Multiple members warned Senior Pastor Bunger and other church leaders that a man, Christopher Ryan Crossno ('Crossno'), was behaving inappropriately toward young children in Spring Creek's Sunday School programs.’

"‘One Spring Creek employee observed Crossno in a Sunday School classroom reaching to put his hand up a young girl's dress. The employee stopped Crossno before it went further.’

"’A concerned parent told Senior Pastor Bunger and other church leaders that Crossno was making a young girl in a Sunday School classroom uncomfortable by tickling her.’

"’One Spring Creek member communicated to Senior Pastor Bunger that Crossno's behavior was characteristic of a pedophile and that Spring Creek should take steps to keep him away from children.’

"’Spring Creek did not prevent Crossno from having access to the children in Spring Creek's Sunday School program.’

"’’Instead, for the Fall 2012 - Spring 2013 term, Spring Creek named Crossno as one of the teachers of its first grade Sunday School class.’

"’Janie Doe was a student in Spring Creek's first grade Sunday School class in fall 2012.’

"’During class on November 18, 2012, Crossno sexually abused Janie Doe in the Sunday School classroom.’"

“The family seeks punitive damages for negligence and recklessness.

"’Spring Creek's knowledge based on the prior charges against its youth minister regarding sex with minors, and the warnings Spring Creek had received regarding Crossno, Spring Creek's conduct constitutes recklessness,’ the complaint states.”

Spring Creek Baptist Church is shown as being affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Is it any wonder that so many Southern Baptist churches display such reckless disregard when Southern Baptists’ highest leaders have set such a reckless example of denominational do-nothingness on clergy sex abuse?

Prestonwood scandal makes news in Ireland

Quoted from Church & State: An Irish History Magazine (Third quarter 2013 at p. 35; A Letter on Texas Child Abuse):

“Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that Jack Graham, Pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, Texas, one of America's largest Churches, and other pastoral staff and members of the Church, and Church attorneys, have covered up child sexual abuse at Prestonwood, have broken the law, and should face the courts for fines and jail time.

“Jack Graham and others have provided no explanation as regards how their conduct with respect to John Langworthy and others, did not break Texas's 1971 law requiring the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement. Child abuser John Langworthy was expelled from the Church in 1989, has never been arrested for crimes associated with Prestonwood, and Jack Graham has never explained why Langworthy was not arrested.

“This situation has been ignored by Prestonwood management and members, Dallas and Plano law enforcement, the cities' district attorneys (who are responsible for criminal prosecution), and the leading newspaper of the area, the Dallas Morning News.

“Coverage of the issue has kept alive by Internet bloggers, an online Baptist newspaper, and a nationwide campaigning organization. . . .

"Texas's 1971 law requires all persons to immediately report suspected child abuse, and states that privileged communications (such as those that pastors, attorneys, and teachers might encounter) are not valid exception cases. The 1989 Langworthy case involved Prestonwood Pastors Jack Graham, and Neal Jeffrey, attorney Randy Addison, administrative Pastor Bill Taylor, and deacon Allen Jordan (father of Amy Smith), along with young and old members of the congregation. Langworthy has never been arrested for abuse at Prestonwood, nor has any person associated with Prestonwood been arrested for covering up abuse.”
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Related posts:
Boots, biscuits and Prestonwood Baptist, 3/18/2013
Megachurch calls cops on member who speaks out, 3/8/2013
People to remember in the Prestonwood/Morrison Heights scandal, 2/9/2013
Penn State and Prestonwood: Consequences are necessary, 11/10/2011
Jack Graham: Deceiver, believer or in-betweener? 10/1/2011
Prestonwood saga shows clergy abuse database is overdue, ABP, 8/19/2011

 

ACE Study shows correlation between childhood trauma and adult diseases

The ACE Study: "The Bomb in the Brain

The ACE Study is gaining increasing recognition in the medical community and is shifting our understanding of childhood trauma and its effect on the body.

ACE – it stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. The study focused on a half-dozen very specific sorts of adverse and abusive experiences, one of which was sexual abuse occurring before the age of 18.

This study, which was supported by the Center for Disease Control, involved 17,000 Kaiser Permanente patients. So the sample size was huge.

The study documented a strong correlation between specific sorts of traumatic events in childhood and a range of chronic diseases in adulthood – including cancer. Furthermore, the correlation was dose-related – meaning the more of these traumas you have, the stronger the correlation.

Not only was there a correlation with chronic diseases like cancer, but for people who had an ACE score of 4 or more – in other words people with significant sorts of abuse in childhood – their average life expectancy dropped by about 20 years.

I found this data chilling.

I had already known, of course, that there was a strong correlation between childhood sex abuse and suicide, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and mental health problems – but cancer? That took me totally by surprise.

People are still trying to figure out exactly why this correlation is there. The dominant theory is that it has something to do with cortisol production going totally out of whack in childhood, and that triggers a cascade of biochemical reactions.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that being repeatedly sexually abused in childhood is what caused my cancers in adulthood. We all know that cancer is a multi-factorial disease. But I AM saying that medical science now supports the proposition that there is a powerful correlation between childhood sexual abuse and cancer.

So, if you’re a clergy abuse survivor, I urge you to consider the possibility that you may be at increased risk, not only for a range of psychological issues, but also for serious chronic diseases.

Our issues are in our tissues.

Though I found the ACE data to be a bit unnerving, I also believe that knowledge is empowering.

If we know that our past trauma histories render us more vulnerable, then we can at least attempt to better offset that enhanced risk through somatic trauma therapies and through other healthy practices.

For myself, this is part of why I’ve developed a regular yoga practice. Yoga has been shown to help regulate cortisol production and to be of help with post-traumatic stress disorder. But whatever you do, whether it’s walking or meditation or gardening or tai-chi or kick-boxing or something else – I would urge all of you to make your own health a real priority.

If you’d like more information about the ACE study, here are some links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbiq2-ukfhM&list=PL4FEC7202DB5F009F&index=1&feature=plpp_video

http://www.acestudy.org

http://www.acestudy.org/ace_score

http://www.naasca.org/2012-Articles/031212-BombInTheBrain.htm

Baptist World Alliance: Talk but no action

Baptists should take "urgent action to implement measures to protect children from abuse, support their physical and emotional welfare, and respond to allegations of abuse," said the Baptist World Alliance in a resolution passed at its annual gathering July 1-6 in Jamaica.

This international umbrella organization for Baptists – the BWA -- resolved that Baptists should take action even in instances "where the complainant has not contacted police, the police have not pressed charges, the police do not consider there is enough evidence, or the prosecuting authority has dropped the case."

The BWA "urges all Baptist churches, conventions and unions to take seriously every case of alleged child sexual abuse, to ensure that proper rules and processes are in place to protect children from harm and to promptly respond to allegations."

Finally, the BWA expresses "profound sorrow at the ways in which children have been betrayed, harmed and sexually or otherwise abused." It states its repentance of any failure by Baptists anywhere "to protect and of the failure to care for those who have been abused." The BWA also states its regret for instances of "neglect to implement and enforce effective policies and processes to protect children from abuse and of the silence of many of our churches on these issues in the past."

Those last three words – “in the past” – give a big clue as to what’s wrong with this nice-sounding BWA rhetoric. They apparently think that Baptist clergy sex abuse and cover-ups are a problem “in the past” – but nothing could be further from the truth. This is very much a current and on-going problem.

And why does the BWA bother to express its “regret” for instances of “neglect to implement and enforce effective policies and processes to protect children” when Baptists’ failure to implement and enforce effective policies and processes to protect children” is a failure that continues to this day? And personally, I think they give themselves too much credit in calling this failure a mere “neglect.” I would call it flat-out recklessness.

To be sure, the BWA has put forth some nice-sounding words, but it’s still nothing more than talk. Where are the deeds?

And surely, the BWA must realize that deeds are what’s needed. Just a couple months ago, it was reported in Great Britain that seven additional men had made child-rape claims against one of the BWA’s own former high-level executives, minister Robert Dando  

Robert Dando

Dando, who previously served as executive assistant to the BWA president and who was a prominent British Baptist minister, is already serving an eight-year prison sentence in Virginia, where he was jailed in 2011 after molesting two boys while on a mission trip in the U.S.

All the BWA talk in the world won’t take care of those kids whom Dando molested.

Nor will mere talk do the task of reaching out to other kids whom Dando may have molested, including to kids in India where Dando also worked for a children’s charity.

And nor will talk do the job of protecting other Baptist church kids in the future.

Talk is too easy; deeds are needed.

Gay grandmother shunned by church

In the New York Times’ “Civil Behavior” column yesterday, a woman asked this question:

Dear Civil Behavior: I’m 53, a daughter, a sister, a mother, a grandmother and a friend. And I am gay. I was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist Church in Tennessee, and I had spent a lifetime in hiding and hating myself because of my sexual orientation. I eventually reached a point last year when I could no longer deny that I am gay, and I convinced myself that it would be better for me to die rather than risk bringing shame to my children and family by telling the truth. I had a plan and the means to carry out my plan, and I had chosen the date when I planned to commit suicide. Some things happened to stop me that day, and I eventually told a friend the truth. Shortly thereafter, I told my children, my extended family and those closest to me. I write a daily blog, and on Jan. 1, I posted my “coming out” entry. I’ve lost many friends and a few family members since my admission. And the church where I had been a member for over 20 years has completely shunned me. But for the first time in my life, I am being honest with myself and learning to love myself for who I am. As I continue to interact with people who are not accepting of my sexuality, what advice would you give me on how to treat them now?

How I wish that Southern Baptist leaders could look at themselves and be even half so honest as this woman. If only Southern Baptist leaders could recognize the real-world effect of all their anti-gay actions and rhetoric, the world would be a slightly kinder place.

 

But of course, I'm always wishing the same thing with respect to their denominational do-nothingness on clergy sex abuse as well . . .  if only Southern Baptist leaders could be made to see the human cost of their conduct.

Occasionally, Southern Baptists may manage to talk the talk of Christian love, but a huge chasm separates their talk from their deeds. You can read about some examples of Southern Baptists' anti-gay behavior here.

Make no mistake about it – Southern Baptists have helped to foster a climate in which anti-gay sentiments can all too easily fester into anti-gay bullying. And there is nothing loving or Christian about it.

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Related column: “Would Tyler Clementi be loved by SBC churches?” EthicsDaily, 10/27/2010.

Irish Baptist pastor's abuse of girls covered up for 30 years

From the Belfast Telegraph:

Paul Gardiner

“A former Baptist pastor and gospel singer has been jailed three decades after his abuse against three young girls was covered up by the Church.

“Paul Gardiner was sentenced to 11 months and banned from working with children. . . .

“Judge Kerr also ordered the pervert to spend 10 years on the police sex offenders' register.

“Prosecuting lawyer Rosemary Walsh had told an earlier court how the abuse happened on each occasion when Gardiner, who was in his late teens at the time, was staying overnight at the victims' houses, whom he knew through associations with Monkstown Baptist Church in Newtownabbey.

“It was alleged in court that members of the Church were told of the abuse but decided to deal with it 'in-house' rather than inform the authorities.

“Last April Gardiner, from Cusher Road in Markethill, pleaded guilty to a total of 13 counts of indecent assault he committed against the girls who were aged seven, nine and 14, on dates between January 1978 and March 1980.

“The married father-of-four has in the past made recordings with top gospel singers and has also worked as a youth pastor.

“Yesterday Judge Kerr told Gardiner that had he not pleaded guilty he would have jailed him for two years and nine months . . . .

“Victims campaigner Michael Connolly criticised the Church's handling of the allegations against Gardiner.

“‘Those who have stood in the way of justice and those who have covered up the abuse of children have to be brought to book and made answerable for their actions,’ he said.”

Amy Smith's statement for SNAP event at Southern Baptist Convention

“Truth alone will endure.

All the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.”

-- Gandhi
 

Today, I send a heartfelt thank-you to Amy Smith, Miguel Prats and Pam Palmer, who stood together outside the convention center in Houston while Southern Baptist delegates convened this past week. Their presence served as a testimony to the truth about the extent of the clergy abuse problem among Southern Baptists and to the truth about how poorly the denomination is dealing with the problem. Below is the statement that was made there by Amy Smith.

 

Pam Palmer and Amy Smith

"We are here today to protect kids. For far too long, SBC church officials have remained silent on what we believe to be a systemic problem of inappropriate and dangerous responses within Southern Baptist churches when Baptist clergy are credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

 

"Church staff and members often immediately and even publicly rally around an accused child molester instead of keeping an open mind and urging anyone with information to come forward. Then, victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are intimidated or frightened and stay silent, many times, for decades. As a result, all too often, those who commit and conceal child sex crimes walk free, remain hidden and hurt others.

 

"This ought not to be. All children and their parents in our churches and communities deserve our utmost transparency and truthfulness. It is the light of truth and knowledge that is our greatest tool to protect kids.

 

"We urge the SBC to wait no longer and today decide to leave behind the status quo of silence and worn-out, weak and cowardly excuse of Baptist polity and autonomous church structure that keeps officials from cooperatively addressing the issue of child sexual abuse within SBC churches and subsequent cover-ups of that abuse by the failure to immediately report any knowledge or suspicion of abuse to law enforcement authorities.

 

Miguel Prats and Pam Palmer

"We have asked for a chance to address the annual SBC meeting to discuss how church staff and members should respond when allegations of clergy sex crimes and cover ups surface.

 

"Christa Brown of Stop Baptist Predators writes,

 

'The requests are nothing radical. We asked for the sorts of safeguards that already exist in other major  faith groups in this country. We asked that the denomination provide (1) a safe place where people may report abusive ministers, (2) a denominational panel for responsibly assessing abuse reports (particularly those that cannot be criminally prosecuted), and (3) an effective means, such as a database, of assuring that assessment information reaches people in the pews.'

 

"Most critically, pastors should be expected to clearly follow mandatory reporting laws and report suspected child abuse to the police immediately. Any pastors who have not done so should be held accountable and urged to do the right thing to protect kids from more harm from accused clergy who have been shuffled off to other unsuspecting churches, as in the case of former Prestonwood Baptist minister John Langworthy, a confessed child molester and recently convicted sex offender in Mississippi.

 

"Certainly, any pastors accused of failing to report and covering up child abuse should not be held up as models. They should be chastised.

 

"A civil lawsuit by 11 plaintiffs accuses C. J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries of refusing to report suspected child sex crimes to the police. Two prominent SBC pastors, Al Mohler and Mark Dever have expressed public support for Mahaney.

 

"Church officials who SNAP considers to have acted inappropriately regarding the Prestonwood Baptist Church / Langworthy child sex abuse case include Dr. Jack Graham, past president of the SBC, and Neal Jeffrey, associate pastor at Prestonwood."
________________________________

"Pastor implicated in sex abuse scandal is back," Religion Dispatches, 11/24/13 (with link to the lawsuit pleadings)

 

While Southern Baptists preached, prosecutor filed charges

Travis Ray Smith

While Southern Baptists were busy preaching and pontificating at their annual convention in Houston this week, a Missouri story provided a good example of the consequences that come from this denomination’s do-nothingness on clergy sex abuse.

A Missouri prosecutor filed new felony charges of statutory rape and statutory sodomy against Southern Baptist pastor Travis Smith.  The charges are based on events involving a teen girl, aged 14 to 15 at the time.

Ironically, the timing of the new charges coincides with the Southern Baptist Convention’s passage of its all-talk-no-action resolution on the sexual abuse of children.

Smith, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Stover, Missouri, now faces a total of six felony charges, ranging from forcible rape to sexual abuse.

A CBS news affiliate reported from an anonymous source that, four years ago, the local Baptist association had barred Smith from its annual children’s summer camp. And Smith was previously charged with similar crimes, but was acquitted on those charges in 2011. And even while facing these additional six charges, the church has still retained Smith as pastor while the charges are pending.

So Smith has quite the history. It appears that Southern Baptist leaders have been a great deal more concerned with not upsetting the apple cart of Smith’s pastorate than they have with protecting children from sexual abuse.

I know what some of you will say about Smith’s acquittal in 2011. “Innocent until proven guilty.” But that’s a standard under the criminal law for deciding whether a person should be thrown in prison. It’s not a standard for deciding whether a person should be able to continue in a position of high trust as a pastor. And an “acquittal” in the criminal courts doesn’t mean that a man is “innocent.” Rather, it means that he wasn’t proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt under all the restrictions that are imposed in the criminal justice system.

Most other major faith groups apply standards of proof that are far different from those of the criminal justice system for assessing child sex allegations against a minister.  But not Southern Baptists.

If a Southern Baptist pastor isn’t literally sitting in prison, he can probably find a pulpit to stand in . . . just as Travis Smith has done in his Missouri pulpit despite multiple child sex allegations.

Do you think that nice-sounding Southern Baptist resolution is going to help any of those Missouri kids?

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Related posts:
Multi-accused pastor remains in pulpit, 11/18/2012
Multi-accused pastor preaches on forgiveness, 12/8/2012